!!! Happy Birthday !!!

!! It's your Birthday !!

The world is a better place because you were born, but most importantly my world is the best place because of you. I love you and I'm so grateful that it's you who's perfect for me. It's easy to see how much you love me and how you love the kids by the way you treat us. We're all so blessed to have you in our lives. Not to mention the kids worship you! You bring joy and life to our home. The kids are happy and confident because they have the love of not just their Mom but their Dad who knows how to play and love and always has their best interests at heart.. You've accomplished so much already and I can't wait to see all the beauty that our lives will hold. I want you to enjoy your day today knowing you have a wife and family that love you and couldn't dream of a world without that love! Happy Birthday love, you amaze me.

Welcome to New Zealand!

These posts are just as much for me to remember all the details of our trip as they are to share with everyone, so, if you can get your way through them all there are eight different posts from our trip! This one is a collection of pictures from our first day.
There are several videos on these posts, to hear them,

you'll have to pause the music playlist on the right.

If you want to look at all the pictures, the slideshow is at the bottom of the page..

Right when we stepped outside of the Auckland airport, the warm humid air hit us with an incredibly strong smell of honey. I couldn't believe how sweet the air smelled. We were so excited to be there and so relieved to get off our plane, it was 13 hours straight from L.A.

For our first day, we checked into our hotel and then were shown around the city by a guide who had been hired by Sam's company

Here's some of what we saw.

The City of Auckland

They were celebrating the Chinese New Year, these pictures were from inside the Space-Needle Looking structure, we stopped in to convert our cash to the local currency and this is what was going on inside.

The Northern Island of NZ was formed in large part by Volcanoes, this is the view from a hilltop where you can see several "cones" or old volcano tops, this is one of them.

This was the view from one of the streets we were driving down, it was a residential area.

We stopped into a little shopping district and walked around some, I was so impressed with how well they keep up their buildings, it seemed like every building had a fresh coat of paint. You would even see shop keepers out doing touch ups on what looked to be a perfectly painted store front.


I was so impressed with this, when we were walking we stumbled up onto a little birthday party, all the kids were inside an art studio getting to paint and the party was set up outside the shop in the little courtyard. Too cute!
For Dinner our first night we went down to the wharf to find some good seafood, the boats and views were incredible! I think one of the things I was most excited about was eating all the wonderful food that I didn't have to cook!

View inside the restaurant looking out from our table.

Some other fun things were that they drive on the other side of the road, so when you're walking on the sidewalk, our first instinct is to move to the right when someone's walking towards you. I can't count how many times I did that and stepped right in front of someone, they're expecting you to move left, like traffic. It was funny. The people there also had a good sense of humor and quick comebacks, they loved to show their national pride and take a jab at Australians any chance they could get. We are so thankful that we have had this amazing experience!

The Langham

The Langham Hotel in Auckland was absolutely beautiful, here's some pics... When we walked in it smelled so fragrant like fresh flowers, I realized that all of these giant arrangements that were placed everywhere were actually real flowers. Needless to say, we were blown away and felt very aware of how much Sam's company appreciates him and how very blessed we've been to experience these things.

This was the entrance to the pool area, the doors would just go into the walls!


This was on the roof top

Beachin' It

We started off with breakfast at a little cafe across from the beach, they serve this completely natural yogurt that's a lot smoother than ours and VERY sour with sweet fresh island fruits... it's the best thing ever!

Sam, showing off amazing hair... along with the amazing water!!

My favorite times were at the beach. On this day, we rented jet skis and kayaks, we took our jet ski way out around a point and we could see the city from the ocean, we were chasing seagulls on the water too. We had so much fun with the jet skis, and then took the kayaks out and just floated, laying on our backs side by side, I could've stayed there all week!

Auckland Cup Week

Auckland NZ prides itself on being the sailing capital of the world. It's also called the City of Sails. We were lucky to get to ride on one of the boats that they use for the America's Cup sailing competition. The races were actually going on during the time we were there. This crew required participation from all the passengers though, they weren't going to do all the work for us, it was a ton of fun. The Weather in Auckland was a lot like Hawaii, it'd be bright and sunny one minute and then turn cloudy, have a little rain the next, it was warm rain though so we didn't mind.

Sam and his friend Craig "grinding", that's what they call it when you're changing the position of the sails.

While we were on the boat, this helicopter came really close to us and just hovered by us, I wondered if the pilot was trying to show the people inside the America's Cup Boat!
The Beautiful city of Auckland, and some of the beautiful boats that some lucky someone owns...

Dinner that night was down at the wharf, fresh seafood, the guys all got the seafood platters.

The next day we were off to the South Island, headed for Queenstown. It was fun to get on and off the plane using ladders, I'd never done that before, kind of felt like a celebrity....

These were our travel buddies... Maria and Max, Craig and Julie... We had a lot of fun together!

Welcome to Queenstown

Queenstown is a little mountain town on a glacier fed lake in the Southern Island of New Zealand. It actually reminded me quite a bit of home, in North Idaho, except some of the mountains were way, way bigger. This was a really fun place, they pride themselves on outdoor adventures and nightlife. Our Hotel was right downtown, so we could walk to anything within a matter of minutes. The south Island is also famous for their river fishing. Lots of trout!

We took the last working coal-powered boat in the southern hemisphere out to Walter Peak, an old sheep farm and plantation. It was beautiful but we couldn't help but laugh that we were the youngest passengers by at least thirty years. When we got there we had ,... a buffet dinner of course! I haven't met a grandparent yet that doesn't love buffets. If you don't watch any of the other videos, this is the one to watch...

You can't go to New Zealand and not hear about sheep, wool and other products from sheep are one of NZ 's largest industries along with farming and tourism. We got to see this sheep get sheared, it all came off in one big piece! She was much happier once her heavy coat was off.